Two UC researchers to receive 2012 Nobel Prize
On Oct. 15, Lloyd S. Shapley, a UCLA professor of mathematics and economics, and Shinya Yamanaka, a senior investigator at UCSF, were honored with the 2012 Nobel Prize. Each award is shared with two previously-recognized researchers: John B. Gurdon of the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge and Alvin E. Roth from Harvard University, in their respected fields.
Shapley won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for the “theory of stable allocations and the practices of market design,” as announced by the Nobel Prize committee. Since joining the UCLA faculty in 1981 and retiring in 2000, Shapley studied non-cooperative market models, political games, cost allocation and organization theory.
As an affiliated researcher at the Gladstone Institutes, Yamanaka was honored for his stem cell discovery. After a six-year journey, Yamanaka discovered how to induce regular adult skin cells with multi-functional attributes—capable of developing into any cell in the human body.
The Nobel Prize is an international award administered by the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden. The University of California is honored to have 59 researchers with 60 Nobel prizes. The 2012 Nobel Prizes totalled to 1.2 million dollars.
University students connect through UCMeTalk
An online launch party took place on Oct.29 to promote UCMeTalk, a live social network founded by Nazir Katabi, Purdue University graduate, and Anthony Liu, UC Irvine informatics major. The website connects the 10 UC campuses, in which students and faculty must register with their school email.
According to Katbi, UCMeTalk isn’t just any chat site; he wanted to create a page for like-minded individuals to interact with one another. Users are randomly connected with another student of similar interest through a one-on-one video chat feed. The website also allows you to filter out other students by name, major or college. Another feature available to a user are “shout-outs,” which is similar to a tweet or status update, yet is limited to one per day. A user’s page can also receive approval ratings by other registered members.
Overall development of the site took eight months, with the total cost of $10,000, Katbi and Liu will expand the UC network by including features such a virtual debate room or “mixers,” where users may log-in to discuss about a specific topic.
